Posts by Category: future tech

It’s coming WHEN?

cool tech August 5, 2010 posted by

Denmark’s Net-Zero-Energy Home – our homes may have a future as power generators

The Danish Net-Zero-Energy Home shown above may look ordinary but it could transform the way we live in our cheap energy restricted future. The house uses a truck load of high technology allied to cost effective materials like wood to deliver a building that generates more power than it consumes. As you’d expect the building is beautifully designed in that typical Nordic simple style, but alongside the traditional fixtures and fittings you’ll find extensive installations of photovoltaic solar panels, heat pumps, triple…


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Awesome August 4, 2010 posted by

CyGlo – cool motion powered LED lit bicycle tyres

CyGlo is a cool new technology for embedding motion powered LED lights into bicycle tyres. The lights can be set into the rim or the main part of the tyre tread and be set to flash or stay on continuously. Once you have the tyres on your bike, you’ll be as visible as an emergency flare in a bear cave to all those other road users around you. The developers have just secured investment cash and a new chairman, and are…


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cool tech August 4, 2010 posted by

Microsoft Image Sharpener – a possible end to blurry photos one day?

Researchers at Microsoft have come up with a hardware/software combination which removes blur from photos. Unlike the conventional image stabilization (IS) tech which is inside most digital SLRs today, this new approach doesn’t just reduce blur, but removes it. It works by using incredibly accurate motion sensors to record the movement of the camera which creates the blur, and then effectively removes that motion with software. In 6 degrees of motion. The result is a crisp photo where any trace of…


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future tech August 3, 2010 posted by

Maverick Sport Flying Car – Papa Jetson spins…

Behold, the Maverick Sport Flying Car. Over 90 mph on the ground, 25 mpg and around $85,000 out of the wallet. [Via]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OeOQ2ZxTcg  The Maverick is the true flying car: drivable on public roads with a civilian driver’s license, and pilotable when airborne under S-LSA/E-LSA certification. Preparation for flight is quick and simple, thanks to I-TEC’s innovative wing deployment system, which also provides the Maverick maneuvering capabilities unique among powered parachutes. Tags: maverick+sport, flying+car


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Eco Friendly July 26, 2010 posted by

Makani Air Turbines – taking power from the wind with added complex

It strikes me – as a rank amateur of course – that the last thing you would want in order to generate electrical power from the wind, would be a complex tethered kite concept. The Makani Airborne Wind Turbine system however combines just these elements in its  proposed low cost power generation product. There’s lots of nice charts, pics and videos on the site, but you can’t help feeling that any system which relies on swinging an aircraft around on a bit of string at…


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cool tech July 8, 2010 posted by

T.27 City Car – electric cars get the Formula One treatment

This is the T.27 City Car, designed by Formula One designer Gordon Murray. It features a Zytek Automotive electric drivetrain (probably similar to the one in the Smartfortwo EV) which will propel the vehicle to 105 km/h and give it a range of 80 –  100 miles. A running prototype is scheduled to hit the asphalt in April next year, no news on pricing yet. The thing is based around the rather cools T.25 City Car which is a conventionally powered…


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cool tech July 6, 2010 posted by

Could this NETRA Android app kill the optician business?

Researchers at MIT’s media lab have come up with a prototype Android app which lets users check their own eyesight by viewing their mobile phone screen through a special plastic lens device. The eye test software on the phone then works out the data needed to create their eye prescription in around 3 minutes. Note that it won’t be able to check out your eyes for disease like glaucoma. The whole thing looks as though it could come in at around $2 a…


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Awesome June 14, 2010 posted by

SparkleShare – open source Dropbox clone on the way?

SparkleShare is a new open source project to provide an alternative to the cool DropBox file sharing and synchronisation service. When I say new, I mean there’s no serious code to speak of yet, just lots of enthusiasm. And bugs. Nevertheless this is an excellent project and one that deserves support. DropBox is fabulous, but we do need an open alternative to provide choice. In case you don’t know about DropBox yet, it’s a superb way to share, backup, and synchronise your…


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cool tech June 11, 2010 posted by

Millimeter Wave TV Camera – can see behind walls and obstructions

This unprepossessing lump of hardware is a Millimeter Wave TV Camera which can capture images of things behind obstacles like plywood walls and suchlike. The tech, based around radio wave sensitivity, is still very new, and the quality of the resulting images are not amazing, but it looks like something that could be very useful in the future for finding people in smoke filled buildings and other emergency scenarios. “With conventional optical cameras, it’s not possible to take pictures through…


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Awesome June 11, 2010 posted by

Book Flipping Scanner – ultra fast new tech promises to scan a complete book in 60 seconds

Wanna scare a book publishing executive? Show him the video of this Book Flipping Scanner from Professor Masatoshi Ishikawa of the University of Tokyo. The system combines a high resolution 500 frame per second camera with a laser beam and some incredibly clever 3D software which can grab images as a book is literally being flicked through faster than the eye can read. The result is a system which can scan a 200 page book in around a minute. Sound…


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future tech June 11, 2010 posted by

Recognizr – find out about someone by taking their photo with your phone

One of Cory Doctorow’s better known science fiction novels–  Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom – feature a world where you can pull up information about people you meet using an implanted augmented reality system. Well guess what, fact appears once again to be meeting fiction with the Recognizr system from TAT. Using nothing more than an Android phone and the software, the software will capture a face, and then overlay their Facebook, Twitter and other social network information on screen for you to…


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cool tech June 2, 2010 posted by

36Mbps Mobile Broadband at 430 km/h – very fast wireless coming to a SIM card near you soon

Journalists in Shanghai were recently given a graphic demonstration of the speed and robustness of the upcoming new LTE mobile broadband technology. The demo involved accessing the network at an average of 36Mbps while the train they were on was speeding along at 430 km/h (267 mph). Result, no drop outs. In fact the connection only glitched when another train passed, which is probably to be expected. Makes your pitiful 8 Mbps home broadband connection look a bit lame eh? This is…


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Awesome May 31, 2010 posted by

Sony produces paper thin ‘rollable’ LCD display – world still waiting for Minority Report style newspapers

Sony has been demonstrating a cool new paper thin rollable colour LCD display, which could really revolutionise the portable device market. The thing also does not require a backlight, implying that it could be very power friendly, another key point. The stalled but very clever Readius mobile phone shows that allied with the right design smarts, this kind of flexible display could have a real future, now all that remains is to work out how to produce the stuff commercially at…


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cool tech May 28, 2010 posted by

Mainz Quantum Interface – another small step towards a quantum computer?

German scientists have succeeded in doing something unimaginable with light and atoms which will probably, maybe, one day lead to a real live quantum computer. The Mainz Quantum Interface is so complicated to explain that only people with an IQ of over 190 can understand it, but from our cursory examination it appears to involve temperatures of just above absolute zero and levitating atoms 200nm above an incredibly thin glass fibre filament. Watch this space?  As was demonstrated by the…


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cool tech May 27, 2010 posted by

Eye Tracking HeadCam – awesome tool needs a bit of design work

This Eye Tracking HeadCam is an awesome piece of geek tech. The thing basically uses four cameras to track your eye movements and capture whatever you’re looking at. Unfortunately it looks like something out of Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory at the moment, but imagine if the tech could be designed into a normal style of eyeglasses, very cool. Watch the videos for a demo.  The EyeSeeCam is a rig that attaches to your noggin and points a camera wherever your gaze falls. There’s actually four…


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